SSLSessionCache cannot occur within VirtualHost section error occurs when SSLSessionCache directive is inside the VirtualHost section.

Here at Ibmi Media, as part of our Server Management Services, we regularly help our Customers to perform VirtualHost section related queries.

In this context, we shall look into the steps to fix this error.

More information about SSLSessionCache ?

SSLSessionCache is the file-based cache of established SSL sessions. When reestablishing a connection to the same server, using an SSL session cache can save some time, power, and bandwidth.

SSLSessionCache configures the storage type of the global/interprocess SSL Session Cache. This cache is an optional facility that speeds up parallel request processing.

It supports the following storage types:

none

This is the default and just disables the global/interprocess Session Cache. There is no drawback in functionality, but a noticeable drop in speed penalty can result.

dbm:/path/to/datafile

This makes use of a DBM hash file on the local disk to synchronize the local OpenSSL memory caches. The slight increase in I/O on the server results in a visible request speedup for our clients, so we recommend this type of storage.

shm:/path/to/datafile[( size )]

This makes use of a high-performance hash table inside a shared memory segment in RAM to synchronize the local OpenSSL memory caches. This storage type is not available on all platforms.

What triggers SSLSessionCache cannot occur within VirtualHost section ?

On checking the validity of the apache configuration file using httpd -t, the following error was received:

SSLSessionCache cannot occur within <VirtualHost> section

This triggers when the SSLSessionCache is inside the VirtualHost and since it does not usually allow the same.

How to fix SSLSessionCache cannot occur within VirtualHost section ?

To fix this error, it is important to define SSLSessionCache outside the VirtualHost section.

For instance:

Listen 443
AddType application/x-x509-ca-cert .crt
AddType application/x-pkcs7-crl .crl
SSLPassPhraseDialog builtin
SSLSessionCache “shmcb:Z:/wamp/bin/apache/Apache2.2.11/logs/ssl_scache(512000)”
SSLSessionCacheTimeout 300
SSLMutex default
NameVirtualHost *:443
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName “ibmimedia.com”
DocumentRoot “Z:/wamp/www/”
SSLEngine on
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP:+eNULL
SSLCACertificatePath “Z:/wamp/OpenSSL/certs/”
SSLCACertificateFile “Z:/wamp/OpenSSL/certs/public.crt”
SSLCACertificateFile “Z:/wamp/OpenSSL/certs/ca.pem”
SSLCertificateKeyFile “Z:/wamp/OpenSSL/certs/ssl.key”
SSLCertificateChainFile “Z:/wamp/OpenSSL/certs/sub.class1.server.ca.pem”
</VirtualHost>

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